BibleProject - “God” Is Not a Name – Exodus E1

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

God is not a name—it’s a title. In fact, the God of the Bible introduces himself by a specific name in one of the most famous stories in the Bible, the exodus event, when he works through Moses and Aaron to deliver Israel from slavery in Egypt. In this episode, Tim and Jon dive into the first movement of the Exodus scroll and explore the theme of God’s name.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (00:00-12:15)Part two (12:15-23:45)Part three (23:45-46:30)Part four (46:30-1:05:28)Referenced ResourcesThe Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, and Johann Jakob StammInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience the literary themes and movements we’re tracing on the podcast in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS“Field Studies, Vol. 1” by Chillhop MusicShow produced by Cooper Peltz. Edited by Dan Gummel and Zach McKinley. Show notes by Lindsey Ponder. Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Today on the podcast, we begin in the scroll of Exodus. These first stories and Exodus of Moses and Pharaoh, the plagues and Passover, these stories are famous, and not just because of all the movies. The Exodus event is the event that gets appealed and referred back to more than any event in the Torah. In other words, when you go into the prophets and the writings and even the New Testament, the Exodus event is viewed as the event that defines the name of Yahweh. There is a repeated refrain through all of these stories.

God reveals himself to Moses, he has his showdown with Pharaoh, he liberates his people. Also, everyone will come to know the name of Yahweh. That's the phrase, to know the name of Yahweh. To know someone's name is to know what they are all about. So Yahweh is on a mission to first reveal his name and his character, his purpose to the chosen people. And then through them reveal his name

and reputation to all the nation. And this is the major motif of the Exodus story. And what do we learn about the name of Yahweh in these stories? The revelation of the name attached to the liberation of the people is all connected here. Yahweh is revealing his character in a new way in this story. I'm John Collins. This is Bible Project Podcast. Today, Tim McE and I begin the School of Exodus. We are in the first movement of Exodus and we're going to trace the theme of the name. Thanks for joining us.

Here we go. Hello Tim. Hey John. Hello and welcome to Exodus. Wow. Wow, the school is really significant. We've made it out of Genesis. Yes. We have.

And why that feels significant is because as we've talked about the Bible over the years, we talk about themes and we spend a lot of time in Genesis, specifically the first movement of Genesis, tracing the theme. And we may touch down in Exodus here and there, but for the most part, we know a lot of these stories, we haven't sat down and really talked through. Yeah, the story of Moses, on Mount Sinai, and the golden cache has come up a lot.

Yes, that comes up a lot. But, yeah, for the most part, this is new territory for us to talk about. So, that's great. And, you know, rightly so, that we've been in Genesis for so long, because you can't tell a story without really dialing in the opening part of the story. Yeah. But, we have spent a lot of time there. So it's great to venture forward.

And so we're gonna look at the scroll of Exodus in three movements. And if you've been following along, dear listener, we walked through the scroll of Genesis and Four movements and a movement is just a collection of stories that work together as a whole. The Genesis scroll kind of neatly works kind of in generations, essentially. But the extra scroll is different.

The three movements kind of have their own unique DNA. And maybe Walk Us Through just an overview of the whole book. Yeah, totally. Well, so yeah, again, what we're trying to do is not take our cues from the chapter divisions in our modern Bibles, which are very helpful, along with the verse divisions, but we are trying to time warp back to an era long before the chapter of verse divisions were in anybody's Bible and go back to the original organizational cues that the authors give to the original, organizational cues that the authors give to the material.

And so they do this through repetition, patterning, and the cycling of themes through a story that brings open up sections of the book and then also bring sections of the scroll to a close. Hmm, Exodus is its name in its Greek translation tradition, actually, exodas, which is a compound word in Greek, which ex means out of and hodas means road. Hmm. The road out of.

The road out. Yeah. Exodus. Hmm. In Hebrew, the name of this book comes from the first word, which, or rather the second word. So the first two words are Ve'ala Shemot, which is the first two words, and these are the names. It's the first line, and these are the names.

Yeah, it's a short, it's a condensed genealogy of the sons of Jacob. Really, stuff. Yet uploads all the stuff from the end of the Genesis scroll about the descendants of Jacob, down in Egypt, Joseph was a ruler there, but then he dies. So it begins with the next generations after the last story of Genesis. That's how it begins. And this first movement goes through the celebration

of Passover. So it's chapter one through chapter 13, verse 16. Okay, and a lot happens in there. Yeah, chapters one through six, almost at the end of six, is the enslavement of the Israelites by Pharaoh. God raises up Moses, Moses sent Pharaoh, Pharaoh digs in his heels and says, no way I'm not going to let people go. It's the first part. The second part of this movement is the 10 plagues, 10 acts of divine justice that God brings on Pharaoh, but each time giving him a chance to turn around and let people go.

And then 10 times Pharaoh says, no, and so 10 times God brings judgment. That's at the center of this. And then the 10th plague is this kind of mega unit in chapters 11 through 13. This is Passover. Passover, yeah. And what's interesting is, you know, that the 10 plagues, it's really exciting, fast-paced stuff.

And then you hit chapter 12 and 13, and it's like you're in Leviticus, all of a sudden, it's a long description of the ritual instructions for celebrating Passover, culminating in the seventh day. Because Passover kicks off a seven-day feast and a seven-day celebration. So that's first movement. First movement of Exodus is Israel, in slavery,

Moses being raised up, show down with Pharaoh, the 10 plagues, and the 10th one leading to Passover. Leading to Passover. Second movement begins in chapter 13, verse 17, which is when the Israelites leave Egypt. So movement one was about the liberation from Egypt leading up to the night of their deliverance. Second movement begins with them actually leaving Egypt

that night. And so it's about the journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai and what happens when they first arrive at Sinai. And Sinai is the place where God meets them in a thunderstorm, gives them a law. Yeah, that's right. He wants them all to come as close as possible to him on the mountain.

And the people choose to stand at a distance in fear when Yahweh shows up. And Moses says, Yahweh's testing us. Whether or not we'll fear Him and follow His laws and listen to His voice. And so they sign up for the test and say, yeah. Thank you for these laws. It's the revelation of the Ten Commandments. We want to trust you. We want to his voice. And so they sign up for the test and say, yeah, thank you for these laws. It's the revelation of the Ten Commandments.

We wanna trust you, we wanna follow you. Hooray. And this unit ends with the fire and the cloud that followed them through the desert, moving up on top of the mountain for seven days. And Moses goes up on the seventh day, and then that's how this unit ends. So this movement ends again with seven day period.

Yep, that's right. So movement one is real in slavery being rescued. Yes. Ends with the seven day Passover festival. Yeah. Movement two is them leaving into the wilderness, bringing them to Mount Sinai, where God's fire goes with them, meets them at the mountain,

and Moses goes and hangs out for seven days. It sits on top for seven days, and on the seventh day, Moses goes up on behalf of the people because the people don't want to come close to you, aren't they? Okay. Just kind of a bummer. You're kind of like, oh, he really wanted them to all come close.

Yeah, but he's all the way up on a mountain, and then it's true. It's fire. You know what? Well, that's exactly right. That's what they say. We don't want what. The first of the covenant commands that the people said,

yes, to was, don't worship any other gods and don't make any idol statues. That's going to play a big part in the next movement. In the third movement, the third movement of Exodus goes from chapters 25 through the end of the scroll, chapter 40. And it opens with a block of verbal blueprints for the tavernacle. Here's how you build the tavernacle. Yeah, essentially we just got married in a covenant. Build me a house. We'll move in together and that's the blueprints of the tavernacle. The Moses

is shown while he's up on the mountain. And then in chapter 32 the story pivots and says, hey remember all those Israelites down at the mountain who didn't want to come any closer. What are they up to? They are violating the covenant that they just come in it to this is the golden calf story golden calf story Xs 32 to 34 They break the covenant and it's only Moses's intercession and the offering of his own life He reminds God to be consistent with God's own character. So God forgives them, and re-makes the covenant with them. And then the Tabernacle is built, and that's chapters 35

through the end of the book. And the end of the scroll ends with a whole series of repetitions of the number seven, and the fire and cloud that was leading them through the desert, then went up on the mountain, now comes down and hovers over the tabernacle. And you're like, hooray! And then the last paragraph is, and Moses could not go in. Bum bum bum. Which leads to the drama that is Book of Leviticus. Okay, so that's the big overview. And what we're gonna start talking through

is the first movement of Exodus, which is about the liberation of Israel from Egypt. And we are gonna be tracing a pattern. You haven't even introduced yet, which is gonna be... Drum roll, the theme of the name of Yahweh through movement one, chapters one through 17. The name of Yahweh. Yeah.

And there could be a lot of reasons why we're doing that. I think one of the most significant is we're introduced to the name of Yahweh here in a special way. Yeah, that's right. Even though in Genesis, the narrator and the characters have been engaging Yahweh by that name all the way through. There's something very special about the new or the renewed revelation of the name of Yahweh and the name's meaning. Two Moses and the Israelites after generations of being enslaved to Egypt and the question of the cultural identity and the religious identity of the Israelites in these chapters are really up for grabs, because they have been dominated by an oppressor

that claims to be like an incarnate deity that is Pharaoh. And the gods of Egypt were told are also a part of what's oppressing the people. And so the revelation of the name attached to the liberation of the people is all connected here. Yahweh is revealing his character in a new way in this story. And so there's emphasis on people coming to know the name of Yahweh. Just actually, that's the phrase. We're going to camp out on the repeated phrase that's all through this section of Yalves plan that people come to know the name of Yalves. That's the key phrase. All right.

Yeah. So, shall we venture forth? Shall we X-Hadas? Take the road out. Take the road out? Take the road in. Well, okay, road out. It's an Exodus.

This is our Exodus from Genesis. And it's our Enhadass. The word in is N in Greek, though. Enhadass and Exodus. En- Let's go. Okay, so let's take a few minutes, just kind of set the scene and the opening paragraphs of the book and we're gonna hear echoes of the themes and the melodies of Genesis just like right right off the bat here. Alright, so before we jump into this first section of the movement let's talk more about this idea of

the name. This is the pattern we're gonna trace. God's name is Yahweh. But what's the significance of tracing this theme? Like, why does God care what they call him? Like my son, I taught him to call me Papa. And now he's ten and he switched-hmm. It was just really a abrupt switch. And... He did he process it with you or did just one day? He just changed. It just started happening. I was like, what's going on?

And he wouldn't even talk to me about it. He's just kind of like, oh, oh, oh. Oh. Um. And it just never went back. Huh. And it was sad. Yeah. Oh yeah.

That's a milestone moment. That's a milestone moment. Yeah. But at the end of the day, it's okay. He can call me dad. Yeah, yeah. So what's the deal with what we name things and this hyper focus on a name? Yeah, what women really weird is if that day he came down for his bedroom and was like, hey, John. Yeah.

is this that day he came down for his bedroom and was like, hey John. Yeah. Totally. So parental titles and names are a little bit different, right? Yeah. Because it's actually for a child to use a parent's name can sometimes speak of not necessarily, but can. Speak of, well, I don't know what I can speak of.

I remember I had, we had some neighbors when I was growing up. They were the kids I played with, you know, like across the street, I played with them for years. And they called their parents by their names, first name. And they were close to them. And so, actually, yeah, not so close to the dad, but close to their mom. But they call both their mom and their dad by their names.

And it was just so noticeable to me because it had never even occurred to me to do that. But I think on the whole, it feels, at least in my cultural setting, it feels odd. Yeah. Okay, so I get it, names are important. Yeah. You know, we give nicknames to each other

and they have a sense of what you mean to me. So there's a bond there. Yeah, for family, we give each other special names that match the level of closeness. Yeah. Papa, dad, dad, but for a friend, a good friend, what you hope is that they call you by your name, your given name, right Tim or John

When I was in pastoral ministry, I was not Ready and actually my first Years as a pastor was in the Midwest in Wisconsin and people would regularly approach me and call me pastor Pastor Tim We sometimes pastor Tim, but sometimes just pastor. Just pastor? Yeah. And it was very, I had to always kind of shift

and be like, oh, you can just call me Tim. It's not a big deal. But in their mind, it was a role. What they're addressing is not just a person, but a role. And for that for them is, I guess, a special role. So are, yeah, the names of what we call things, and calling somebody by their name versus a title.

So, we have the same dynamic in the Hebrew Bible. You can see it in our English translations, when you see capital G, O, D, that's the Hebrew word Elohim, and it's a title. Although the word God in English, and some religious traditions has kind of become. Become a name. A little name, or people treat it like a name.

Yeah, dear God. Yeah. Well, I don't know. That's interesting. I wonder what most people are thinking at that point. Is it like saying dear dad, you know, like it's a title? Yeah, it is the title. The other English word that does feel like a title

that I think indicates the distance the Elohim did in Hebrew would be deity. So it's like me calling you human. Yeah totally. It's like, oh hey human. It's a category. Yeah and I would think that's strange. Yeah you think that's strange. If we live amongst a bunch of different species of hominids. He'd be like, okay. Hey human. Human. Yeah.

No, that's right. But that's what Elohim means. That's what Elohim means. It's a category title for type of being, namely a not a not earth being, but a sky being, and other dimensional being, Elohim. Whereas the personal name Yahweh, which goes by sometimes called the Tetra Grammaton, Tetra for Grammaton letter,

it's Latin for the four letters, cause there's four consonants, four Hebrew consonants to the name, Yo, hey, Vav, hey, and those are the four consonants, four Hebrew consonants to the name, Yo, hey, Vav, hey, and those are the four consonants that you find in Hebrew manuscripts that are referred to the divine name. So we'll talk about the pronunciation of the name later when we get into it. But it's really as intuitive as the difference of me calling you co-worker and calling you John.

So it's about intimacy, relational intimacy? Yeah, relational. It's always relational name that he revealed uniquely to his chosen ones as he selected them out from among the nations and entered into a covenant relationship. It seems like it has, it's loaded with even more significance. I'm thinking of Jesus' prayer, where he says, here's how you should pray, Father in heaven. May your name be holy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. May your name be like set apart and be special. Yes. He cares about his name. Yeah. And is he's talking about Yahweh, like the name the specific name Yahweh, or is he just talking about his reputation and how does this all work together? Yeah, exactly. So the Hebrew word name, which is he's talking about Yahweh, like the name, the specific name Yahweh, or is he just

talking about his reputation and how does this all work together? Yeah, exactly. So the Hebrew word name, which is Shem, has a range of meanings. It overlap, like all words do. So it can refer to one, your actual name, the name of a person, John. But it can also refer to, yeah, the reputation, to the reputation, the social value or capital that someone's name has in their relational circles, the way that people think about you and the value that they attach to you is often all communicated with the word name. So when the people of Babylon and Genesis 11 want to build their city in the tower with its head up in the skies, what they're motive is they say, so we can make a name for ourselves. They want to exalt the name of their culture and language in place up into the skies.

God says to a guy who we just met a page ago in Genesis 12, I'm going to give you a great name. Oh, yeah. A migrating, you know, herdsman. Abram. Abram. Later Abraham. He's gonna give him a great name.

So, yeah, when you're talking about how people think about your name, whether or not people know your name, whether they use your name in a blessing, like, hey, may Yahweh bless you or for Abraham, may Yahweh make you like Abraham. That would be using Abraham's name as a blessing. You could use someone as a curse, may Yahweh make you like the sons of Korah who were swallowed up by the earth, something like that. So your name and reputation. So you always on a mission to first reveal his name and his character, his purpose to the chosen people that he selected. And then through them,

reveal his name and reputation to all the nations. And this is the major motif of the Exodus story. The Exodus event is the event that gets appealed and referred back to more than any event in the Torah. In other words, when you go into the prophets and the writings and even the New Testament, the Exodus event is viewed as the event that defines the name of Yahweh, meaning his character, his purpose, who he is, what he's about, what he's on a mission to do. And that's what the narrative is about, that people may know the name of Yahweh. Great. Yeah.

This is, incidentally, just a major theme throughout the rest of the Hebrew Bible, the name of Yahweh. It can become like some famous lines from the psalms, some people trust in horses, some people trust in chariots, so people trust in horses, some people trust in chariot. So we trust in the name of Yahweh. So the name of Yahweh carried power because of its high reputation. Later in the prophets, Israel's faithlessness to keep the covenant, right? Their violation of their covenant with Yahweh, it pollutes his name, defiles his name,

dishonors it. So, as you mentioned earlier, Jesus, in the Lord's Prayer, said that who he was all about his mission and the prayer that he gave to his disciples was, may your name be restored to a state of uniqueness and holiness among the nations. And then, in the writings of Paul, the name of Jesus becomes merged with the name of Yahweh. So the way you honor the name of Yahweh is by acknowledging and praying in the name of Jesus. Yeah, growing up in church,

that was a thing we would often sing or say is like, God is the name above all names. Name above all names. Yeah, name above all names. Yeah, yeah, seeing it. That's right. And so that became kind of a, I think a normal way to talk about something, although I don't know if I fully ever really appreciated

the significance of why focus on the name. Yeah, it almost comes, this would be a whole study, we don't have time to do. But back in the archive, we had a conversation with Michael Heiser, I think a guest interview, and part of what we talked about in that conversation was the name of Yahweh and how it can become a literary kind of stand-in for Yahweh himself. Oh. Interesting.

Yeah. Anyhow. for Yahweh himself. Oh, interesting. Yeah, anyhow. Didn't we also, and we talked with Carmen, Himes about carrying the name. Carrying the name. Yes, those are two interviews that would be good to go back in the archive and listen again, that we give more depth to the conversations we're about to have about the name. But yeah, the name of Yahweh, it's a major, major motif, and we're going to read the

foundation story of it in different parts of the first movement? So let's begin at the beginning. The opening paragraph of Exodus is a genealogy. Man, you thought you left those behind in Genesis? It's riveting, nope. But it's short. It's really just a genealogical list of the 11 sons of Jacob that came down with him to Egypt.

But then you're also told that those 11 had a bunch of sons and daughters, and so it was a total of 70, a caravan of 70 that came down into Egypt. And Joseph was already there, and then as promptly as they all go down to Egypt, Exodus 1, verse 6, and Joseph died. And all his brothers, his name is registered, and that whole generation died. And all his brothers, his name is just listed, and that whole generation died. That's in the plot cycling of the Bible. That reminds you that we're outside of Eden. But then, verse 7, it flips. But the sons of Israel were fruitful, and they increased mightily, and they multiplied, and became very very strong and the land was filled with them.

This is the blessing of God and Genesis. Be fruitful and multiply. That's right. And specifically, it's the blessing of Eden that was forfeited by Adam and Eve when they brought a curse on the land through their behavior. And so what God did is continue, as each generation went by, he singled out a chosen one and gave them the Eden blessing so that through them it could be restored to all the nations. And so right now it's the seed of Jacob in the middle of Egypt that is experiencing the Eden blessing. Fruitful.

The seed of Jacob, who is the seed of Abraham, who God said, I will bless you and you will multiply. Yep, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Now there's one new thing here. So fruitful, increase in number, fill the land. These are the words of the Eden blessing from Genesis 1 and 2. But there's one new term here that sticks out. It's the term to become mighty or to become strong. It's the verb atsam. And this is precisely the piece of the blessing that's really bother the king of Egypt. Yeah, if you've got, if you're a king, and there's a large immigrant population that is multiplying, I guess from, yeah, if you're just thinking from an economic perspective, that's like, that's, I think, a beneficial

thing if you're a leader. Economically, it's a great thing. But if you are threatened by cultural differences or just identity, kind of things, perhaps, I mean, this is in a democracy, but perhaps they're going, this is in a democracy, but perhaps they're gonna start voting for a new Pharaoh. Yeah, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, then no bueno. Yeah, so exactly.

And that's exactly what happens. A new king arose over Egypt, who didn't know Joseph, so he's a counter. The Pharaoh, at the end of the book of Genesis, the one who elevates Joseph. Yeah, he's great. He can see God's blessing on the chosen ones and so he blesses them and he gets blessed in return. His whole

land gets flourishing in a food shortage. But this Pharaoh, the new Pharaoh that arises, yeah, he's the opposite. So he says to his people, look, the sons of Israel are more numerous and more mighty that is stronger than we are. So he's observing the thing that was described in the previous, right? The previous paragraph. So he says, come, you know what we should do? We should deal craftily with them, deal wisely with them. This is the language of the serpent. Yeah, this crafty inhabitant of the land, who was already there before they got there. Oh, yeah.

And this is not a great way to introduce character. No, no, no. We need to deal with fruitiness, or else they're going to multiply. And let's say they're the war. You know, wars happen. Egypt, they're going to join people who hate us and fight against us and then they will go up out of the land.

We can't have that. So you can see the portrait being painted here. We can't trust the immigrants. Can't trust these immigrants. Not only are they many, but they, they're too resourceful. At the end of the day do they care about our best interest? Yeah, that's right. We're not, and we can't trust what they do. That's right. So this is an example of, yeah, this is the opposite of a blessing abundance mentality. Right? So the people shaped by God's blessing, trust, even though it's

often hard to trust, but are to be shaped to people who trust that there is enough. And so that we can share and we can be a blessing to our neighbors and there will be enough. And this is the opposite mindset. Yeah, and what's interesting is we know that God has a special relationship with this crew, that if you bless them and you treat them like

yep, treat them with abundance, you're going to be blessed. So not only is that true for like just God's economy in general, but it's like especially true for this group who God shows. That's right. So he Pharaoh plays the role of the snake and tries to usurp and gain power. And what he ends up doing is oppressing and enslaving the Israelites. That's verse 11. They appointed task masters over them to oppress them with slave labor. Now, were they already slaves and now they're just getting wrapped up? It doesn't say. This is the transition. Were they fruitful and multiply? And then right here is now they target this immigrant population for slave labor. And particularly to start building storage cities, and then they name to the cities, Pithom and Raamze's. But the more they oppressed them, the more the Israelites

multiplied and spread out. And so the Egyptians were fearing the sons of Israel. So that's the opening scene. We're replaying the Eden Beats of the Eden blessing of the big family, the 70, and then be fruitful and multiply. But now that multiplication and blessing puts Pharaoh to the test. And so we're watching Pharaoh both be someone who's facing a test, but then also be playing the role of the snake who got the humans to fail. He's kind of like Adam and Eve and the snake at once in terms of the analogy being set out here.

So what they do, this is one long attempt to harness God's blessing for their own self-advantage. So he makes three attempts here in this chapter. The first attempt is enslave them, but that's not working because they're just multiplying like rabbits. So second attempt is to start killing them off. So they kill them off as we milk them for all the labor they're worth. And this is the story of the Hebrew midwives. So Pharaoh comes to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Chifra, which is the word beautiful. The other one was

named Pua, which I think, if I remember, you're just looking it up. Mmm, ooh, sparkle. What? I've never looked this up. Huh, yeah. Beautiful and sparkle. Beautiful and sparkle. So red. So yeah, these become little, little eaves figures. And so what he says to them is, hey, when you see Hebrew women giving birth, if it's a boy, kill them. That's what Pharaoh says. Yep. Yeah, that's his command. But the Hebrew midwives, they fear Elohim. They don't listen to the word Pharaoh. Yeah, they're gonna listen to God. They don't listen to the word of Pharaoh. Yeah. They're going to listen to God. They don't listen to the snake. Oh. They fear God. This is an Eve that has not listened to the snake. They're anti-eves.

They're redeemed, they're e-figures. So they fear God and don't do as the King of Egypt command it. They let the boys live. And then when the King of Egypt said, Hey, why are you letting boys live? They deceive him. They counter deceive the deceiver. And this is built

off of all of these themes going on in Genesis about deceptions and counterdeceptions and so on. But what they say is, yeah, the Hebrew women, you know, they're stronger than Egyptian women. And, man, before we even get to the house, they've had the child. We're trying to kill them. They just have their babies too fast. So God was good to the midwives. He did good to them and the people multiplied and became more strong. So second attempt to Pharaoh doesn't work. Not only is it not working, it's accomplishing, it's bringing about the thing that he fears. And so the third attempt is, okay, then every boy who is born cast them into the Nile River, throw them into the waters.

And that's how the three attempts, the first attempt failed their fruitful multiply. Second attempt, kill all the boys, fail, fruitful multiply. Third attempt, throw all the boys in the Nile, and this is not only going to be his failure, but this third attempt unfolds into the birth, not just the birth of the man who's going to overthrow him. But this man Moses is going to float right into Pharaoh's house. It's as if Pharaoh's command brings about his own downfall here. And that's what chapter 2 is about. So notice the creative use of the themes from Genesis 1 through 3 here. Settle, but the language gets you there. So chapter 2 begins.

There's a guy from the house of Levi. It's one of the sons of Jacob. And he married a Levi woman. And they had a son. And when she saw that he was good, she hid him for three months. And when she saw that she could hide him no longer, she made a taiva. It's the Hebrew word. We've talked about this for. You have the arc? Yeah, yes. It's the same word for Noah's arc, and this word appears in two stories in the whole Hebrew Bible. Noah's arc, and Moses's Ark.

This one was smaller. Yeah. I didn't need to have as much room for all the animals. And it's the same vocabulary. She covers it with tar and pitch. That's just what Noah did in the story. And she put it, ooh, she put it in the water of the reeds. And this is a hint forward to when Israel will be saved at the sea of reads,

at the end of movement one. So it's a big frame of Moses' passage into the water reads, becomes an image of what all of the people will undergo later on in this section. And so here comes the daughter of Pharaoh and she sees the child He floats into Pharaoh's daughter who's bathing by the Nile and Then there's Miriam most as a sister is there and says hey, you know You can probably tell that's a Hebrew boy, but you know I could call a woman a Hebrew woman she could nurse him for you. And then, you know, you could have a little fountalling. That's the term you use. Think for this kind of thing, a fountalling.

And so Moses ends up being raised in his, you know, first month, first years by his mom, but is being adopted into the House of Pharaoh. So it's the interesting merging of the Hebrews come from Noah's son, Shem, and the Egyptians comes from Noah's other son, Ham. Wait, Shem, you just said Shem means name, right? Yes, yeah, exactly. Yeah, his name is name. So Noah has a son name name. Okay, and that's where Abraham comes from. Abraham's line comes from Jacob in the form Moses. And then Noah has another son, ham, which means warm and warm has,

I forget if Egypt is his son or grandson, but so it's the lines of Shem and ham. And here, the families of Shem and him are uniting together at the same time that they are dividing. So there's hostility between the two families, but these through the activity of these women, through the seed of the woman, there's also now emerging of the two families. This is interesting. It's such a... There's also now emerging of the two families. This is interesting. There's a sibling rivalry going on.

Correct. Kind of deep in here. Yeah, that's right. You got it. So then all of a sudden Moses goes into the house of Pharaoh and he grows up. And this is important for the revelation of the name where we're going. So Moses grows up. And at some point, he comes to an awareness that the enslaved Israelites are his people. And

this is always filled in in like Hollywood versions of the story. And the narrative gives no detail about any of that. It's interesting. About how he discovered it. Yeah, it just says, one day Moses grew up and you went out to his brothers to look upon their slavery. And you're like, oh, did he just remember or was it? Right. He told exactly. It's probably pretty obvious if whether you're Egyptian or not. Yeah, yeah, it could be that there was complexion, skin tone, facial features, something who knows. But one way or another, he goes out and he sees an Egyptian striking one of his brothers.

This is a great cane-nabel inversion here. So he sees out in a field. Yes, they're out in the field. And one is striking one of his brothers. And so Moses believes that he is his brothers keeper. But the way that he does it is he looks one direction, then he looks the other direction. And the Hebrew words here, Kovako are echoing another forward for when the walls of water are on one hand and on the other hand, it becomes this motif.

So Moses' first attempt to deliver his brothers is by looking one way, looking the other way, and then going in the middle. And he goes into the middle, and he murders. He strikes down the Egyptian. Yeah, so he murders him. And echoes the same word. So he becomes the cane, get her. Yeah, he's both, yeah, but he's both, he's both a murderous cane, but he's murdering to be his brother's keeper. And what happens is the word gets out and ends up making its way of Pharaoh. And Pharaoh realizes what's happened. And so he tries to murder Moses.

The murder leads to threat of murder. And so Moses has to flee. So this is an interesting first attempt of Moses to save the people by using his own hand, his own power, and it leads, well, at least him getting exiled. And actually, even what the Hebrews say to him is, what, who made you king around here? So they see Moses trying to like, you know, pull a power play and become the revolutionary and they're like, what we didn't ask you for that. And then Pharaoh, yeah. So the whole thing backfires. And so it's this interesting moment where the beginning of Moses' characters that he's kind of a hothead

who has a plan to redeem the people and it fails. And then he's going to go through a long transformative journey so that he eventually will be the one to liberate the people, but not in the timing or the way that he would have preferred. And that's the kind of the arc of his character in the section. So Moses goes away, he goes away, and then we walk out of a cane-enable moment here. And then he goes to the land of Midian, which is a descendant, also a relative of Jacob's line. This is from one of the sons of Abraham. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Through his third wife, Ketra. And where would this area have been? Well, yeah, there's lots of debate about that. So essentially what we would call the Northern Sinai Peninsula, yeah, or land of Midian.

So he finds a well, and by that source of water, he meets his wife. And then when he meets that woman's father, who is the priest of Midian, we're told, the high priest of Midian. His name is here called retuel, but he'll also be called Chathra. He's like brother, come on. And he brings him into his tent and Moses marries the woman that he rescued at the well. So I'm eating at a well, peace amongst the nations. Totally. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's good. It's a little Eden in the midst of exile. And so he gives birth to a son by naming

him an immigrant there. It's the name Gershom. But Gershom is the Hebrew sentence, an immigrant there. And then the conclusion is, in the course of those many days, that King of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel groaned because of their bondage. They cried out and just like Abel's blood cried out from the ground and rose up to God. So here, the Israelites cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. So Israel is Abel here. Yeah. Okay.

And Moses wanted to avenge Abel. Yep. But in doing so by his own schemes actually becomes Cain. Yeah. And he has to go into exile. Like Cain did. Like Cain did. To the east. He goes east of Egypt. Like Cain went east of Eden. And God provides for him there. He provides a little Eden gift in his exile. Yeah, just like Jacob's family thrives in exile. And Egypt now, Moses is in exile from Egypt.

Yeah, exactly. And Median. Yeah, this little, these stores are made. Just the way the inversions and the mirrors echo through the narrative patterns. And so this line is essentially the equivalent to the opening of the flood narrative in Genesis. After Cain goes away and builds his city, it becomes a city of blood. So now the king of Egypt dies, and we're going to see a new king arises, And the sons of Israel who are suffering and dying because of the evil of V.J.P, they're

cry for hell. It's the same word as Abel's blood in Genesis chapter 4. It rises up to God. And so at the beginning of the flood narrative, God says to Noah, the end has risen up before me, is in Genesis chapter 6, and it's calling back to the blood of came, excuse me, it's calling back to the blood of Abel that rises up to God. And now the innocent blood has been pouring all over the ground for generations. And God says, enough. Enough, yeah. You guys are reducing creation back to disorder and death.

And so God is going to bring about a de-creation, but single out of remnant, make them the birth of a new humanity. And that's exactly the note that's being pulled up here. Their cry rose up to God, but God. Well, you just said a really geeky Bible. I did. I mean, in a. Well, you just said a really geeky Bible phrase. Oh, I mean, in a way, just so packed in.

So, okay. The blood on the ground. Oh, okay. Yeah. Is gonna create, is gonna, is gonna lead to a de-creation moment where God will, God will save a remnant. Yeah. Okay, in, in normal English, the injustice and violence of humans. That's the blood

Yeah, in the ground is drawing This human community into such chaos and disorder that God is gonna let it completely crumble Yeah, may even accelerate it can accelerate it and this is the idea of the flood or Decreation you call it decreation because just like I'd created out of the waters. Yes, yep. Life and order. When the waters come back and flood everything out, it's... It's a de-creation.

De-creation. In other words, it'll be some terrible event that happens in the life of a community that breaks down all the boundaries of order in that community or in a person's life. Because it happens in a lot of different ways you're saying this melody. That's right. Humans redefine good and evil for themselves. They live accordingly and inevitably that creates a community that descends into chaos. And so God will usher that chaos to its bitter end.

But not everyone will suffer the fatal consequences of that. Yeah, a select number that are marked to pass through these terrible circumstances, so that they, through their faithfulness to God, can become a seed community that begins to grow and become a new kind of humanity that has learned from that failure of the previous generation, and then can a new try and be faithful to God and live by God's wisdom. That's the cycle. So that happens in the flood narrative. So here, it's not Noah and his family that's marked out. When God hears this groaning, he remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He saw the sons of Israel, and he had knowledge of them.

So here it's God is going to select this family out of the decoration that's coming on Egypt because of a promise that this God made to their ancestors, which was, I'm going to bless you and then I'm going to bless all nations through you in this land, up to land of Canaan, and I'm going to make sure you go up there. So this then becomes the little launch pad that launches us into the whole of the Exodus story. This is the motive for it. So nothing about the name yet. Yeah, I've noticed that. And in fact, you'll have noticed that the title for God here in this entire story is just the word Elohim, deity. Deity. And it's not until the next chapter

that the personal name Yahweh is going to start occurring and it's precisely the moment when he calls Moses and says, hey, it's go time. I'm gonna show myself to the nations now. All right, so that was all of the foundation for the story. Beginning in chapter three and chapter three and four, we now have the calling of Moses This is oh yeah

We've actually spent a lot of time at this moment of the extra story to over the years We've spent some time. Yeah the burning book story. Yeah, there's a lot of cool things going on here Yeah, it's a rant. We're gonna have to contain ourselves. We will Okay, so chapter three begins and he's now a shepherd for his father-in-law. Moses is, yeah. So he was leading the flock on the far side of the wilderness and he came to a mountain, called the mountain of Elohim named Dry, or Horab. Horab. Just the word dry.

Dry mountain. Yep, the dry mountain of Elohim. Mount of Elohim. That's cool. I mean, it seems like that's the title that the narrator is using to call it based on the role this mountain is going to play in the story to follow. So there, the messenger of Yahweh appeared to him in fire, flames of fire in fire, flames of fire, from inside a bush. And what's that? And that? No, no, a Sinet.

A Sinet. Oh, that's right, that's right. But it's a word play on the other name of this mountain, which is Sinai. So Sinet, is that a type of bush, or is that just another name for bush? Yeah, it's a great example of the book authors intentionally using a really rare word

to make a word play that echoes into the main themes of Sinai because this is going to be the same place known as Sinai, where they'll come back to you later in the story. Yeah, looks like it's a lone word from Arabic. The Senna plant a multi-colored bramble bush, a species of briar or bramble. So it's a bramble. It's a bramble. Okay. So remember, in the Eden story, where God placed at the border of the garden,

the boundary of the garden, two angelic guardians, and then it said, and a sword of fire, a firey sword. Now it doesn't say that the sword is in the hands of the Cherubim, it just says he stationed the two Cherubim and a firey sword. Oh, and remember that was the Garden, and outside the Garden are thorns and tizzles.

That's what God says to Adam and Eve is now the year outside of Eden. It'll be thorns and tizzles. So here, in a like a thorn bush. Yeah. A wilderness thorn bush. In a wilderness thorn bush, he meets an angelic figure who is themselves like the fiery sword. And we know it's intense and you know, looks threatening because he's gonna hide from it

just a minute. This is all Eden imagery here, but we're not in a garden anymore. It's just like we're not in Kansas anymore. Where? We're in the wilderness. This is gonna be like his moment, his test, his moment of calling.

So he says, I'm gonna go over and look at this thing. Why is it on fire, but it's not eaten up. There's no eating from it. No, interesting. Is that a typical way to talk about fire and Hebrew that it eats things? Yeah, totally. Yeah. But in this case, it's also a funny illusion to the eaten tree. So when Yahweh saw that he had come over to look, he said, Moses, Moses, don't come any closer. take off your sandals, you are standing on holy ground. This is the heaven and earth space. You are in heaven and on earth at the same time. Okay, and here we are for the name. This is Grand Central Station for the name. He said, I am the Elohim of your father, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim

of Isaac, the Elohim of Jacob. He Elohim of Isaac, the Elohim of Jacob. He says, I have seen the oppression of my people. I've heard them crying out. I am concerned about their suffering and I am coming down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians to bring them into a good, spacious land. I have seen how the Egyptians are oppressing them,

so go. I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people up out of Egypt. Yeah, Moses is here going to give a bunch of objections. He doesn't want to go and be the mouthpiece of God to Pharaoh. No, he's not interested. So Moses has a first objection, which is, who am I? And what God says is, I will be with you. And then what he says is, this will be the sign

that it's me who's sending you. When you've brought the people out of Egypt, come back and meet me on this mountain again, but with everybody. Forshadowing. Yep. Forshadowing, the center of the book, which is the big camp out on Mount Sinai, with all his relights. So Moses said to Elohim, okay, all right.

Well, suppose I go to the Israelites and say the Elohim of our fathers has sent me to you and they're gonna ask me like, what's his name? What should I tell them? So this is interesting. All through the story, it's been playing with these categories of identity. Do you remember how only Elohim was used in the first chapter?

Mm-hmm. And generations are going by and it doesn't say and they forgot Yahweh, or they didn't know who he was. But I think it's a subtext of the story, because the Hebrew midwives, what you're told is they fear Elohim, they don't fear Yahweh. Because in the Genesis scrolled Yahweh is used as a proper name. Yeah, toi. And Yahweh both introduces himself that way to Abraham Isaac and Jacob, Abraham Isaac and Jacob call their God Yahweh. So it seems like we're in an era where the name has been forgotten by the descendants of Abraham. Lisa and Moses seems to assume that in this question. You're saying Moses here is kind of like,

I forgot your name, God. That awkward moment when you've been talking with someone for a while and you're like, I forgot their name. Yeah. I mean, really what he says is the people have forgotten your name. But then he asks, like, so what should I tell him? What should I tell them? Yeah, that's right.

I think you forgot. Yeah, that's right. I guess the equivalent would be like, I forgot, but what you say is, you know the people they forgot, your name. Yeah. This is one of those moments. Yeah, have you ever been a situation where you forgot someone's name

and you have to introduce them to someone else? And so the classic move is you just, you just say the name of the person that you're introducing them to, and then you pause, and you let them then do the introductions. Yeah, totally, that's a good one. Moses is doing that kind of motion.

Doing that, right? Yeah, I wanna introduce the people to you. So what name would you like to be called by? Yeah, what's that name that you like again? Uh, Elohim said to Moses, eh, yeah, I share, eh, yeah. This is what you are to say to the Israelites. Eh, yeah, has sent me to you. Mm, that's it.

Eh, yeah, I share, eh, yeah. So what eh, yeah, is there's a verb that means to be or to exist in Hebrew. It's hyah. It's hard not for my inner eight-year-old, not to think of. Karate. About Karate about Karate. Yeah. So Hayah is the third masculine plural past tense. He was Hayah means he was okay. If you want to convert that or conjugate it to be first person

Future or first person imperfect can which can refer to present ongoing into the future or a future action. What you would say is, eh, yeah, which means either I am and will continue to be or I will be. I am or I will be. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so, famously, this got translated by Jewish translators rendering this into Greek centuries after the story was written. And they used the Greek phrase ego-ami, which is ego, or ego, it's me, I, and Amy is the word I am. So they put it into the present tense very clearly. I am who I am. That's who you're to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me to you. So that sounds a little odd.

Hey, John, I am. Once me to tell you something, I think just that's a confusing thing to say. Or it's even more confusing if you're like, hey, have a buddy who wants to meet with you. Oh, what's his name? I am. I am. Yeah. Yeah.

What's his name again? I am. Well, I know you are, but what's his name? I am who's our first? Yeah, so that's the dynamic here. So in the next line what Elohim also says to Moses is say this to the Israelites Yahweh the Elohim of our fathers Abraham Elohim of Isaac Elohim of Abraham Elohim of Jacob That's who has sent me to you. Yahweh. And when you put the Yahweh conjugation, that turns it into the third singular. He is, or he will be. So this is ground zero for the name of Yahweh.

In the name of Yahweh. He is. His name means that he is, and he will continue to be. Yeah, he is. This has become a deep mind of philosophical, theological, reflection for Jews and Christians over the years. And you can see it. You feel like you're being invited into a great mystery here, worth many long walks and

cups of tea. It is the like, you know, we talked about the name above all names as a phrase. This is the penultimate name. Yeah. Just simply refer to me as the one who is. The one who is. Yep. That's exactly right.

There couldn't be a grander way to refer to someone. The one who is. Yeah. It's a way of saying something that's actually fairly abstract. Like, I could tell you, like, I am patient or like like I'm fun. But the thing is it's like well sometimes. That's one level. But the other level is I can say I am. But all of a sudden when I say I am it's like well I am because my parents are and they are because of their parents are and they are because of you know, there's no qualifiers

here. Yes, that's right. Yeah. In other words, we're talking about a being whose claim is, it's not that they are, it's that they are the very fount of being. They are being. This is a being who is being. And on who's being, every other being is contingent and dependent.

And this is where you start to go down the rabbit hole. Every classical, theist view of reality is built on this core concept that reality is contingent all the way down until it, this airstall, until it meets some ultimate, uncaused cause, the thing that is not contingent on anything else. The I am. I am, yeah. The I will be. This is where the past tense of present or future

kinda becomes a real matter. Doesn't matter. No, because if it's a being who is being itself, the one in whom all other beings have their being, or like Espaul, right, we'll say it, the one in whom all other beings have their being, or like, as Paul, right, we'll say it, the one in whom we live and move and have our being, or his line and Ephesians, he talks about God who is overall and through all and in all. That's, that's where in that territory here. So past and present are irrelevant for, right? I mean, time

is a function of us living in these four dimensions anyway. So. Now, you mentioned this was translated in the Septuagint as ego and me. And that reminded me of this is a phrase Jesus used of Himself. Yes. Is it the gospel, John? Yeah, actually, in the gospel narratives, all of them have moments where he's approaching his disciples on a stormy sea up in the lake of Galilee. And it's an illusion. It's an echo of this line. But what he says to them in most of the accounts of that in the four gospels is, they go away me. They go away me. It's usually translated, it's me.

Hey guys, it's me. Which on one level, you know, but I think it's meant to communicate more to the reader than maybe it did to the disciples, which is I am. And then in the Gospel of John uniquely, there are seven times, seven different ways that Jesus says I am. It go in me. It's a claim on John's part that Jesus is the human embodiment of this being. By using the Greek translation of this phrase from this story, it's very clearly saying that I'm using this name. It go in me. Yep. No, just a quick note.

And we made a video on this and that video will accompany this reading journey if you're going to go through it in the app because the pronunciation Yahweh has been debated and still is in some academic circles. So I just have a quick little note here. This is from the standard Hebrew, Arabic, lexicon of the Old Testament by Ludwig Kohler. So in their entry on the divine name, they are putting out all the evidence for why Yahweh is the most original form of the pronunciation. One is in this passage, it's a play on the words, eh, yeah, so that's one. But the other is we have early transcriptions, like pronunciation transcriptions of this

in Jewish and Christian literature. Well, actually, especially in early Christian literature, because Jews stopped writing the pronunciation of the name. And so, as early back as one of the early Christian scholars after the New Testament climate of Alexandria preserved a pronunciation of the name Yahweh, but also in some Greek manuscripts that are pre-Christian. It's pronounced Yahweh or Yahweh.

And the reason why there's even a debate is because in Hebrew you don't use vowels. Yeah, you don't say, you don't write the vowels in early Hebrew manuscripts, and observant Jews stop pronouncing the name. Some centuries before Jesus, it's hard to nail down exactly when that happened based on the sources. And so observant Jews developed a technique that went on into biblical manuscripts where they took the vowels of the word master or Lord and that word in Hebrew is adonai, so that a-o-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-do-na-i, and then they put those vowels into the four consonants, which resulted in what looks like a word, yah-haw-weh, but it's a hybrid word.

Like in Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were a thing, and the brand Jolie, remember that? Yeah, that's Yahweh. So it's not actually a real name that doesn't reflect what anybody was actually ever called, but it's two words merged together. Which then became a way of saying Jehovah. Yes, and medieval European Christianity, that hybrid word was adopted into Christian literacies and became the way to pronounce the name. So, yeah, so if someone says, hey, God's real name is Jehovah. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah, kind of. It was a hybridization of a way to not actually say

its real name. That's right. Which you're saying is most likely pronounced Yahweh. Yeah, the earliest evidence we have points in the direction of Yahweh. And there was also a short form that occurs throughout the Bible is just Yah, Yah, Yah.

Yah, so Yah or Yahweh. So this is the revelation of the name, is the one who is. So I went philosophical real quick, but in context, what Yahweh says about his character is, he's the one who sees oppression. He's the one who observes humans, enslaving and taking advantage of other humans. And Yahweh, the one who is, is the God,

who pays special attention to the cry of the oppressed and works to bring about circumstances that will result in their liberation and deliverance. And that is the revelation, not just of the name, but of the character and the reputation that Yahweh wants to be known by in this story. And that's exactly what the rest of the story is going to be about. Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. Next week we continue in the Exodus narrative. Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, Yahweh is asking for you to let his people go. And Pharaoh says, eh, who's this Yahweh guy? I'm the king here. When there's a contest between great names, right? Between Pharaoh and Egypt and Yahweh and Israel, it becomes a contest of reputations.

And because Yahweh's name is to be associated with the liberation of all creation from the power of the snake, when Yahweh meets the snake in the form of an imperial king who won't acknowledge the true God, it's time to crush a snake. Today's podcast was produced by Cooper Peltz, edited by Dan Gummel and Zach McKinley, our show notes by Lindsey Ponder. Bible project is a nonprofit.

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